Friends creator says 30th anniversary is ‘fraught’ after death of Matthew Perry

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Friends creator Marta Kauffman has said that the sitcom’s 30th anniversary is “fraught” following the sudden death of star Matthew Perry last year.

Perry, who played the wisecracking Chandler Bing in the hit TV comedy, died at the age of 54 from the acute effects of ketamine use.

Friends celebrates its 30th anniversary on Sunday (22 September). Kauffman was interviewed ahead of the anniversary alongside co-creator David Crane and producer Kevin S Bright.

Speaking on Today, Kauffman said of Perry’s death: “It’s a huge loss and it does make the 30th a little fraught.”

Bright added: “He made us laugh every day.”

Perry had spoken openly about his struggles with addiction throughout his life, and had worked as an advocate for rehabilitation.

“He’d been fighting the good fight for so long, and it really did feel like, from the [2021 cast] reunion on, that he had finally found some peace,” Bright continued.

In 2021, Perry and the other five leads of Friends – Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer – appeared in a televised reunion special. The programme would be Perry’s final on-screen appearance before his death.

Recurring Friends cast member Aisha Tyler, who played Charlie, recently spoke to The Independentahead of the anniversary, and reflected on an interaction with Perry.

“On my first live show, Matthew Perry said to me, ‘Get ready for your life to change,’” she recalled. “And it was just those little moments of kindness that came very easily for them, but really made a difference for me – because it’s very hard to be funny if you’re frightened.

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“You’re on a hit show and these are people you’ve watched on television and you’re standing next to them, and you just don’t want to suck.”

Elsewhere, she reflected on the show’s lack of racial diversity, which has been increasingly criticised in the years since the series ended. Tyler was the only Black actor to have a recurring role on Friends.

“There was nothing in the writing of my character or in the stage directions that indicated that Charlie was supposed to be a woman of colour. I know that David has said that he really pushed for that [more diversity] and I think that’s wonderful,” she said.

“But what I liked was that they just wrote this smart, sexy character and she happened to be Black and they weren’t trying to seismically change what the show was, but they were aware of the fact that it didn’t feel totally representative of the world as it existed then or had existed for many, many, many decades.

“So I knew that me coming on the show was an aspect of that self-reflection.”